Trace Systems, Inc. (B-422056.7; B-422056.8)

You should not care.

Category: Corrective actions, IDIQ

Date: 8 November 2024

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-422056.7%2Cb-422056.8

Trace Systems, Inc., protested Army’s corrective action and solicitation amendment following Trace’s earlier protest regarding the issuance of a task order under the GTACS II IDIQ contract. The task order covered global field service representative support services. The protester alleged the corrective action was insufficient and challenged the agency’s decision to remove a small business participation evaluation criterion, arguing it was arbitrary and inconsistent with the IDIQ contract.

GAO found Army acted reasonably and within its discretion. Corrective actions—including reexamining evaluations and amending the solicitation to eliminate the small business participation requirement—were upheld. GAO noted that the small business participation criterion lacked evaluative weight as proposals could achieve acceptable ratings with zero participation, negating its role as a meaningful discriminator. Additionally, GAO determined the IDIQ base contract did not mandate evaluating small business participation at the task order level.

The protest was denied. with the agency’s corrective action and solicitation amendment were deemed proper, with no abuse of discretion. This case reinforces the broad discretion agencies have in implementing corrective actions and evaluating proposals.

Digest

Protest challenging the agency’s corrective action in response to an earlier protest is denied where the corrective action rendered the earlier protest academic. Protest challenging the amendment of the solicitation is denied where the protester has not demonstrated that the agency abused its discretion when it eliminated one evaluation factor.